Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago

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In this excerpt from the post award ceremony interview, renowned mathematician and 2026 Abel laureate Gerd Faltings reflects on proving Mordell's conjecture at just 27 and on what a mathematician does next.

Faltings talks about:

- Why he avoids crowded fields and prefers to work alone
- What he learned from Nastold, Grothendieck and Szpiro
- How the Tate conjecture came first, and where the Faltings height came from
- Why he kept lecturing when he didn't have to — "it's like a workout"
- His advice for anyone starting a PhD

00:00 – Finding Attractive Mathematical Problems
00:54 – Proving Mordell's Conjecture at Age 27
01:33 – Career After Early Success: Working Alone vs. Crowded Fields 03:14 – Influences: Grothendieck, Nastold, and Szpiro
05:04 – Proving the Tate Conjecture
06:53 – The Concept Behind "Faltings Height"
08:07 – Bounding Heights and Completing the Proof
09:26 – Why Lecturing Is Like a Brain Workout
10:42 – Advice for Prospective PhD Students

#AbelPrize #Mathematics #arithmeticgeometry #GerdFaltings

Video by Reinhardt Film for the Abel Prize